I'm trying to come up with a good something to make for SWMBO for Christmas. She has a nice jewlry armoire thingie already, and really doesn't need another box that would only encourage her to buy more overpriced metal that can't be fashioned into anything useful.
She crochets a lot, and she keeps a basket full of balls of yarn, plus the project du jour, by the end table. I'm thinking she'd like a work box of some sort. Maybe cut some recesses into three sides of it so that she can leave her yarn in the box and pull it out with the lid down... Maybe even come up with some kind of fancy pull-out tray to hold all of her needles.
If anyone has any nifty ideas for such a thing, please share. My idea is still at the noodle stage, so anything is possible. I don't want to get
*too* fancy, since I still have to finish that chess box and a couple of ornaments yet, and Christmas isn't very far away.As to the wood choice... Our living room furniture is all ash faux mission(*) style that's been stained some kind of darkish honey color.
I could mail order some ash, but it's not available locally. I'd have real trouble matching the darkish honey stain too, and I've sworn off stains in any event.
So I'm trying to think up something complimentary for the room. Honey-colored ash, "golden oak" particle board entertainment center, beige carpet with a dark blue remnant in front of the couch, sky blue walls with cobalt trim. The carpet will eventually become probably parquet floor tile some day. I'm sort of leaning toward red oak, but I'm also thinking about walnut, cherry, mahogany, soft maple, and knotty pine as contenders.
Price wise, pine wins, plus SWMBO has a number of craft show pieces (including the basket I'm replacing) made from pine that has had a touch of Minwhacks slapped on it, with no other finish. She has a lot of that stuff, and might dig it if I did something similarly cheesy looking.
I'm leaning away from that, toward something a bit more dignified. I'm seeing maple in my head, but I'm dubious about how that would look with this honey ash stuff. Oak keeps coming back due to grain similarites, but oak isn't ash, so it might be better to go with something that's nowhere close than something that's close-but-no-cigar. Then of course there's my beloved walnut, which is great for anything, but maybe not for this.
Opinions?
- I think it's "mission." It's pretty blocky stuff, characterized by side panels that feature grooves full of closely-spaced slats.